I know these kinds of hypothetical questions are kind of boring, but I was curious what you guys that about this.

The situation is: I am a relatively wealthy person, with enough investment properties to rent out for income and live off. I decide to rent at a price below the market value and attempt to get tenants who are trying to live in the area but are not financially stable, so I can provide some sort of assistance by giving to them cheaper than they can get elsewhere.

I now don't have to work a single hour a day.

I use a full-time work schedule to do all of the following tasks (aside from other things like cooking, cleaning, exercise) (in no particular order):

  • Manage the properties I own
  • Study theory
  • Attempt various worker organisation activities/union activities
  • Participate in Communist Party meetings
  • Partake in Communist Party activities
  • Volunteer for numerous mutual aid groups
  • Protest
  • Write (online articles) and all the other sorts of activities. In other words, attempt to be a "professional revolutionary" as I believe Lenin put it.

Would this be a moral course of action? Or does living purely off the rent of workers outweigh dedicating basically my whole spare time to my nation's socialist movement?

Edit: Just for context I'm not actually in this position lol.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    You'd not be moral, but you'd be basically in the same position Engles is in. Sure you should, morally, take Jesus' advice and sell everything and give it to the poor. But we're not in the business of individual morality, we're in the business of changing the world.

    So if you are in this position just accept some workers are going to call you a leech no matter what you do, because they're kind of right. But if you're gonna abandon the cause because people are mean to you, why were you here to begin with? A lot of people are going to be very mean to all of the Left before this is over.

    • steve5487 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      on the other hand people can only be effective in persuading people if they are someone that can gain the people they want to persuade's respect. Becoming a landlord puts you beneath respect from most people especially your tenants.

      Following the Christian theme the advice given in the Bible for the selection of religious elders is that they shouldn't be someone that is disliked or not-respected by the community they are supposed to be leading, if there is anything to be learned from Christianity practically especially early Christianity it's how to grow and expand a movement even when faced with official hostility.

      In conclusion from a practical standpoint there is a real issue with this as people generally do not like their landlord and frankly the people who do like landlords are the ones least open to radicalisation. This isn't just wrong from a standpoint of being immoral it's massively stupid from a practical standpoint